Friday, October 11, 2013

Mirror, Mirror. . . . Off the Wall Friday

Now, anybody who knows me, knows that I don't like change. I mean, I find "Sameness" very comforting. My 20 year love affair with cotton is a case in point. When I was a
traditional quilter, I had a perfectly legit excuse to keep to the
confines of commercial cotton. Even when I did finally start dyeing my own, it was always still cotton and more cotton. The whole art quilt world has been experiementing with all sorts of new and interesting products. But I - alas - have not.

That's why I broke my "No-New Challenges" rule to try out this Evolon for C&T Publishing. Evolon is a new interfacing they are carrying that is a microfiber with a hand like suede. It stitches and paints up wonderfully. They sent me a half yard to play with and after a bit of brainstorming I decided to make a mirror frame.

Today I spent most of my studio time practicing with different design ideas. Since I only had a half yard of the Evolon, I used felt to work out some ideas. Finally, I came back to flowers and leaves and curves which is a long time doodle theme of mine. I did end up layering it with a cotton batt - mostly for stabilization.

The Colors are a bit off - its a bit more blue and purple then the magenta this reads!

Once the stitching was done, I used my sample set of jacard textiles to paint the white interfacing. I picked a palette of cool colors mixing the paints 2 parts water to one part paint. The interfacing seem to paint up best dry. With it painted, I could easily cut away where I wanted the round mirror to sit.

Looking at it though - it seemed like it was missing something. The microfiber works up nicely but doesn't have the texture that an organic fiber has - so I thought I would add some hand stitching. I first wanted to use my 12 wt Aurifil wool but couldn't find a needle that had a big enough eye for the wool and a sharp enough point to get through the Evolon. So went back to a 40 wt King Tut - doubling it up to give it a little beef.

I need to finish this up tomorrow so I can get it into the mail tomorrow. Its due to C&T by next week and I don't want it to be late! I'll post the finished piece on Monday!

9 comments:

oh this is wonderful! What a departure for you and it works beautifully. Who wouldn't want a mirror like this, very inventive. I've been going to make a mirror for years but never did. The colors are perfect for your stitching too. LeeAnna Paylor

Well, I think you met and exceeded the challenge although I don't think I will be using Evalon anytime soon :-) check my blog as I too have a new non cotton (out of my comfort zone) fabric to play with and any suggestions are needed.

Interesting. I haven't seen this stuff in shops up here yet...but I'm curious. Would be interesting to see how it takes different types of colour (dye, paint sticks etc)...and how it washes...in case one uses it with a water-soluble product...Thanks for sharing!

Hi, Nina Marie. Nothing like going off the beaten path, and you got such lovely and interesting results. Cotton remains my favorite for all kinds of practical reasons, but occasionally a fancy fabric comes along.best, nadia